This weather...

... is really tricking us again and again. For the third time we postponed a Friday day-trip to a close by national park due to the weather forecast just to see the blue skies and sun all the day. Next week, we will go for sure! Here are some nice pictures from Dennis, who enjoyed a rivercruise during the week. We also went to a concert of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Beethoven's second and third synphonie. A friend of a friend works in the Philharmony and could get tickets for free (normally $100). It was a perfect experience! We had a little box on the first level and really enjoyed the music. What a pity that the day was ruined by Alonso winning the Japanese Grand Prix later that night! ;-)

Strange feeling...

... when the plane crashed into the building on Thursday. I was sitting in my restructuring class and just saw the headline on CNN ten minutes after the plane crashed. I haven't heard about a plane crashing into a building within 5 years now and it is really strange that this happened in New York again. The first thoughts were clearly circling around terrorism and you could sense the tension and curiosness in the whole class. Nobody was listening to the professor who hadn't heard of anything. Everybody was just staring at the Laptop, clicking "refresh" every now and then to see the latest development. It was clear that it was not terror even before the class was over but nevertheless, people seemed to be very worried and sad.

Many Visitors...

... these days! Many friends paid me a visit and I am not talking about those imaginary people telling me always to buy more pizza and read cases, but real ones ;-). First, as i wrote on the blog last week, Daniel and David came over for a few days. Then Anne from Frankfurt had a stay-over with Lufthansa here in New York. And now, Dennis from Valencia is here just before Denis from North Carolina will arrive in two days. Further, the work load at NYU increased exponentially and everybody requires assignments, mid-terms and essays to be written. This week I have been to the Natural History Museum which was probably the best museum I have seen so far here in New York. The only disadvantage is its size. It is HUGE! There is no way you can read and see everything interesting within one day. I was a little bit puzzled by their extrapolation of world population growth in the next 50 years. If there numbers are right, there will be very little room for people on this planet in a cpuple of decades, when population numbers will pass 10, 20 and supposedly even 50 billion. Investments in real estate sound like a clever idea. I only saw a third of the museum and definitely have to go back soon. One very convenient fact is that they do not have a predefined entrance fee but a suggested contribution to their foundation. Theoretically you could just donate one cent to see the museum. Cheap education!

The Empire...

… State Building is where we went yesterday. We had the day off for the Jom Kippur weekend and the weather was once more beautiful for early October. So we lined up at 9:30 am at the tallest building in New York. Built in 1930 in just 14 months, the skyscraper consists of 10 million bricks, 500 miles of steel and 1,100 miles of telephone cables. The organizational flow was organized such that the steel came directly from the mill and was placed at its destiny while it was still warm. 73 elevators transport the 18,000 daily workers and 3.8 million annual tourists up the building. A weird feeling to go the first 80 floors in just one minute. It feels like a plane is starting. It takes three months for a team to clean all the windows. Though there was no students rebate, the 16 dollars were well invested! The view is amazing and all of a sudden New York seems to be much more under- standable and much smaller. We spent more than an hour up there and just then the wind started to get a little bit chilly and we started our descent. I wonder whether there is a seven summit club for the worlds highest buildings? ;-)

MoMA...

… was the program for Sunday. A little bit hangover, we lined up at the museum Sunday morning. Besides the other 2 million people who wanted to get in there at the same time, it were my two German friends, Daniel and David who went there with me. After seeing Reina Sofia, the Prado and Thyssen Bornemisza just a couple of months ago, I have to admit that the MoMA is definitely the best of the four. The “modern” is what I like about it. What is only one floor Reina Sofia, is basically the whole theme in the MoMA, the art starting in the late 19th century going until video installations and a light switch turning on and off the lights constantly. One of my favorites was definitely a tiny (real) helicopter hanging in the museum, some industrial “art” and design of the 60s and 70s and some pictures from Magritte and Klimt. For the third time, I was very, very impressed by the pictures of Yves Klein. Even though it is just monochrome blue for example, these picture seem to have so much energy! The four hours there were well invested and maybe I’ll come back here with some later visitors!

First visitors…

… Daniel and David, two of my friends from Solingen are just staying in New York for a five day short trip. They found a really cool offer putting them in a four start hotel at the cost of a youth hostel! I will spend some days with them exploring the city and talking about old times ;-). After a rainy walk to the museum, the sun came out later that day and gave us some pretty nice hours walking through Central Park, the Upper West Side and the Hudson River Park.

Heros for a day...

I guess by now most readers of this blog realized that there is a rivalery between UNC and Duke. Both universities are located in the Raleigh/Durham area (with NC State being the third one) and both teams are always among the elite when it comes to College Basketball. While the Duke Blue Devils have currently a longer streak of NCAA tournament appearances, UNC has more national titles and the best player ever to play the game (Yes, Michael Jordan was a Tar Heel!!).

So, there shouldn't be any discussion about which school is better (UUUUU-AAENNNNN-CCCEEEEEEEE, UNC!). But the dark blue guys still challenge UNC teams every once in a while. So yesterday the MBA Soccer match was on, and it was our time to shine. Usually, the MBA schools of each university are not very well known for there athletic abilities but in every UNC-Duke game is going to be intense.

So after driving into the enemy's terretory, 14 Tar Heels faced 15 Blue Devils and after 2 injuries we ended up having only one sub. To make a long story short, we dominated the first half, but having too many Latins in a team means a lot of nice tricks but usually no goals. On the other hand, Duke played efficient and was up 1-0. After equalizing early in the 2nd half, Duke was up 2-1 with 10 minutes left. After some cocky remarks from the blue devil side, we turned the game around within 3 minutes and won 3-2. I repeat TAR HEELS WIN!!!!!!

Great day, great game, and we now hope to continue that way during next weekends tournament at Yale.

Coney Island...

... is where we went last weekend. Cedric wrote about it a couple of days ago. It is actually not a real island but the southern part of Brooklyn. It is like getting into the subway in New York and getting out just 40 mins later in a completely different world. This place reminds me more of a little town in the mid-west than a part of New York. The beach (which is contradicting the mid-west idea) is surprisingly clean but the water itself looks just like you would expect it to look flowing out of East and Hudson River. No swimming!! Besides the New York Aquarium (which was really good) Nathan's is the biggest attraction. This fast food restaurant does not only claim to have invented the hot dog they also host the annual hot dog eating contest (Trace???). In former years, I would have been easy even for me to win that competition as a smooth 15 to 20 hot dogs would have been enough to win. Then, all of a sudden in the late 90's, a Japanese guy comes along and eats 50 (yes, 50!!!) hot dogs. And he weights barely a third of what the average contestant at this competition weights. Strange! He won the contest now for seven consecutive years and there is no end in sight. His appetite is unlimited! On Coney Island, you can even buy videos of his "performance".

Powerball

I think everybody heard of the Powerball lottery. Every once in a while the jackpot is up to $200 or 300 million and everybody goes crazy and buys tickets. Then a week later, you see some random person on TV holding a check and talking about all the great things he/she is going to do with the money. Well last weekend on the way back from rafting, we all bought a ticket a gas station.

Today, I checked the numbers and.....I WON!!!!!! unbelievable but true, I won $ 2. Too bad, that I have to claim the ticket in West Virginia. Given the gas prices it is not really worth driving up 2 hours. It would have been soooo nice, it would have paid for 8 beers tonight at the Martini Bar. Well, I guess I have to pay the 25 cents per beer now out of my own pocket....

River rafting...

...this weekend we went to West Virginia to the Upper Gauley which is one of the Top 5 rivers for rafting in the world! As a complete rafting rookie, I felt kind of nervous when the trip started. But with a great team effort and thanks to a very experienced guide we managed to get down the river without falling off the raft or major injuries (little stitches dont count).

As you can imagine, it is kind of hard to take pictures in the raft while fighting the river, so instead I posted a group picture from the dinner on the night before. The place we ate at is called Dirty Ernie's Ribs (no comment).


It was a great experience that I highly recommend to anyone who is close to West Virginia. The company we rafted with is called Rivermen and offers discounts for students. So to all of you, who will go one day: have fun, come back healthy and if you find yourself under water close to a big undercut rock, DON'T GIVE UP!

9/11...

... Many of you asked me ow it was to be here on 9/11. Well, it was ok. We had an even of NYU remembering not only the members of university that died that day but also those who were volunteering to help where ever they could. I didn't go down to the WTC site on that particular day but have been there a couple of times already. It is impressive and kind of depressing. But what strikes me most is what little goes on there. Taking into consideration that ground zero is in the heart of the city I as mayor or construction manager would do everything to get this scar away asap. But not really much goes on there! Funny though is this sign warning of blasts. A thing you would not expect in a city center! The pic above is one displayed at the site. I was impressed by the sheer panic in the eyes of the people. It is really a terrifying even now just to see these people and try to imagine what they might have felt on that particular day in this very moment. Since then, feelings for the event itself and the tragedy for many individuals haven't changed. But there is a movement questioning the source of this terror which tries to earmark the whole attacks as a conspiracy. Yeah, like the moonlanding you might say. Just another stupid conspiracy theory of people who don't know what else to do. But apparenty (according to the 'trustworthy' source www.youtube.com more than 36% of Americans question the official media coverage) it is something to be at least aware of. To be honest, I was shocked after watching THIS documentary! Check it out and tell me what you think!